§ Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North)The purpose of the debate is to ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the Government will do to support and spread the word about the imaginative and innovative green commuter plan in Nottingham. There is nothing technical or complicated about it: it involves the sensible encouragement of car use and sharing, and it is backed by a little common sense and organisation. It is a pioneering innovation, which I hope the outgoing Government will support in their last months. I hope that they will also use their currently undemocratic regional offices to spread that example throughout the United Kingdom.
Already, the east midlands central office of the Government has abandoned its pith helmet, its khaki shorts and its donkey, and has started to look at a commuter plan for its staff. The councillors and officers of Nottingham city council and Nottinghamshire county council deserve immense credit for piloting this new venture and for taking a risk on a bright idea.
We know how unpleasant the fumes and congestion caused by traffic can be, but Nottingham has underlined a more serious economic side to congestion. Millions of pounds in time and resources are wasted as people sit in fumes and car congestion in and around Nottingham. For a city such as this, that represents a serious drain on resources and productivity which it can do without.
The work of the city and county councils to regenerate the local economy would be seriously hampered if the city were to grind to a halt as traffic continued to grow, quite apart from the dreadful consequences of air pollution and traffic accidents. The worst congestion in Nottingham, as in many other places, is at rush hour, and reducing the impact of commuter traffic has been the councils' first priority. The councils have done much to improve transport in the city, but Nottingham has realised that the key to reducing car commuting is the involvement of employers and employees, and that that is where commuter plans have a part to play.
I am bringing this matter to the attention of the House and the Minister because the Nottingham example provides a valuable lesson for Government and Parliament. It is an initiative that the Department of Transport must support more solidly, not just in Nottingham but in the many other towns and cities where rush hour traffic and congestion damage the local economy. The answer is not the slashing of 20 per cent. from local transport budgets or more ludicrous, lottery-style competitions between local authorities for ever smaller pots of money, but real support from the centre for local initiatives.
Around the world, sensible commuting is catching on. Los Angeles has introduced a diamond lane, where only cars with more than one person are allowed. However, I understand that, with typical ingenuity, the trade in blow-up dolls has considerably expanded. It also uses commuter plans and car sharing schemes, which come into force when air quality falls below acceptable levels, as another way to tackle the consequences of traffic jams which are the cause of pollution.
I shall explain in more detail the way in which the city and county councils in Nottingham are approaching the problem. Both councils have agreed that it is essential to 194 lead by example, and are adopting commuter plans for their staffs. The county council's "Steps" programme is already well established. Councillor Denis Petit, the leader of the county council, told me, "We could hardly ask others to do something that we had not done ourselves, so we took the lead with this 'Steps' initiative."
The county council and the city council have produced a resource pack, which has been spread far and wide throughout the city and which encourages local employers to follow the example that has been set by the councils. It has taken off with a vengeance. Boots, Nottingham Trent university, Queen's medical centre, Clarendon college, the City hospital, CCN and many other local employers have taken up the initiative in their own way, and are organising their own versions of the green commuter plan.
Like so many of our continental partners, Nottingham is proving that much can be done by each employer to encourage employees to walk, cycle, use public transport, work from home or share cars. That must and can be done not by using big brother attitudes, but by offering people encouragement and the opportunity to change their habits when that suits them. We in Britain seem slightly embarrassed to act in this social or solidarity manner. Only when we confront that problem will we be able to take serious action at local level.
Many companies already offer loans to help with the purchase of cars, and such schemes could easily be adapted to include loans for the purchase of cycles or public transport travel cards. Local transport plans, which will be introduced by an incoming Labour Government, will make provision and help set targets for such achievements, and will encourage the use of such green commuter plans.
Organising car sharing schemes can put people in touch with others who make similar journeys to work every day; that not only saves on traffic and pollution, but saves people money and is more sociable. The main reason why many people do not share cars at the moment is that they do not know with whom they can share. Work by employers and councils to put people in touch with each other through databases and post code coffee clubs, and the provision of a guarantee of emergency travel home can have a dramatic and immediate effect on the amount of traffic in a given locality.
Examples in continental Europe show how that can have a significant impact on local traffic. Schemes such as the Bremen Stadt Auto car sharing plan in Germany provide models for such work, and it is being taken up by Labour councils in the UK, notably in Edinburgh. In the Netherlands, 2,400 companies are now co-operating in car sharing schemes, and already there has been a 15 per cent. reduction in car commuting.
Nottingham has proved that some people need cars during their working day, but that that does not necessarily mean that they have to drive their cars to work. For example, Nottinghamshire health authority offers pool cars for essential car users. Four cars cover the needs of 150 people who might otherwise have had to drive to work. Similar savings are being made by the city council using local taxi firms.
The city also provides a great example by its proposals for the new ice stadium, which was made famous by Torvill and Dean, by experimenting with alternatives to on-site parking, and by the issue of free park-and-ride tickets to those who buy stadium tickets. Those are 195 innovative and imaginative ways in which people coming together on a small scale can try to tackle the problems that are caused by traffic congestion.
Big employers can encourage their staff to use public transport by negotiating with local operators to secure bulk discounts for travelcards. Nottingham city council runs a successful scheme, which provides staff with discounted bus travel. Another important success by the councils is cycling. Their partnership with local employers has started to produce results, although much more can be done. The Queen's medical centre and Nottingham Trent university are starting schemes to encourage cycling, and others are expected to follow shortly.
As well as loans for the purchase of cycles and the provision of secure parking, employers can negotiate bulk discounts on insurance or offer travel allowances. As recently as yesterday, Nottingham city council agreed to approve a bicycle allowance scheme offering 15p a mile to council staff. As we speak, more new initiatives are being introduced to tackle the serious problems in the city.
The two councils have also demonstrated the importance of facilities at work. They include not only secure cycle parking but showers and changing facilities. I used to cycle to the House many years ago, but I had to give it up because I felt so filthy when I arrived, and there were no adequate shower facilities. Given the inadequate facilities that are available here, perhaps the Serjeant at Arms will consider that in more detail.
Businesses in Nottingham are also being asked to consider teleworking and flexible working hours. They, too, can help to reduce rush hour congestion, as well as bring other unrelated benefits to companies and to employees. In that context, we need to consider schools, which, in recent years, as the Minister well knows, have been one of the most significant contributors to the massive rise in peak-time commuting. That problem needs to be dealt with, perhaps by considering school green commuter plans. Young people are often the most active environmentalists. Perhaps they could devise their own plans at their schools.
The success of Nottingham's project, still in its early stages, is already impressive. The employers I have mentioned, including Boots and CCN, are taking an active interest. The breakthrough that has been achieved in Nottingham is such that companies have been persuaded that helping to tackle traffic problems is in their economic interests. Better traffic flow is good for business, and reduces business costs. Providing a parking space at work, for example, costs £300 per year in maintenance costs alone. For a company wanting to expand its operations, reducing parking requirements can provide valuable new development space.
Companies have also found that commuter plans are popular with staff, can reduce stress and improve morale. The company can save money even on car allowances. It is one of those equations where, if everyone works together—employer, employee, city and county councils—everyone can win.
The benefits to Nottingham are potentially huge. Typical commuter plans aim to cut car commuting in each company by 30 per cent. If successful, that will transform our city, and it could transform other cities likewise. Given such potential and value for money, we might have thought that the Government would be a little more 196 enthusiastic about commuter plans, encouraging councils and companies all over Britain to join, but it has taken the ground-breaking work of Labour local authorities, especially Nottingham city council and Nottinghamshire county council, to bring this project to the attention of people everywhere.
Nottinghamshire county council is co-ordinating an information exchange network to encourage similar schemes elsewhere. Good for it, but perhaps the Government and the Department of Transport could take on that role. I call on the Minister to give his public support to the Nottingham green commuter plans and to issue guidance, further to policy planning guidance 13 and PPG 6, to local authorities to encourage them to work with local businesses to reduce traffic and to review their parking policies.
As Graham Chapman, leader of Nottingham city council, has told me:
Green commuter plans, helpful as they are, cannot be viewed in isolation. To be effective they must be linked to Local Transport Plans, Bus re-regulation, a strategy for Light Rapid Transits and Park and Ride".Green commuter plans are but one part of the jigsaw we need to create to answer modern traffic problems.Just the other week, we had the warm words and complacency, unfortunately, of the Government's Green Paper on transport. Why were commuter plans not convincingly expounded, backed and promoted in that document? Instead, Government policies continue to make it more and more difficult to achieve progress. Rail privatisation, like bus deregulation before it, is producing a disintegrated service, when we need an integrated transport system. That is hampering the efforts of employers to negotiate bulk discounts for public transport fares for their employees to help to tackle the problem.
Sadly, the Government have been free with their empty congratulations for Nottingham and its commuter plans. It is now time to replace that with serious action to spread awareness of that success throughout the country and to spread that best practice. Nottingham has led on green commuter plans, and the Government—if not this one, then the next—should encourage councils everywhere to build on Nottingham's example.
§ The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris)I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on having secured the debate, and especially on his ingenuity in using Back-Bench Members' time for his departmental interests—always a clever technique if hon. Members can get away with it, and amply demonstrated today.
Of course I share the hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for green commuter plans. I have met all the local political leaders in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, and know them well—the chief officers, too. I have much respect for what they do. I never imagined that this was territory for party political nit-picking—although, if we are going to pick some nits, let me just say that, if the hon. Gentleman has concerns about the complacency of the Government's Green Paper on transport policy, it is in extraordinary contrast to the utter debacle that represents Labour transport policy.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and I pointed out that the draft document that became available to us amounted to a bombshell for every 197 person shopping in every supermarket in Britain, that it was profoundly anti-car and anti-motorist, and that it was laced throughout with liberal helpings of sheer politics of envy, what did the Opposition do but instantly withdraw the document, deny any authorship, claim that it had all been a put-up job by Transport 2000—with which they are normally only too keen to be seen to be associated—and say vaguely that something was due and that it would be exciting?
As ever with the Opposition, they were saying nothing. If we are in the business of trading mild insults on an otherwise perfectly harmonious occasion such as this, nothing characterises Labour transport policy so much as the utter absence of commitment to any principle in relation to transport fiscal policy or planning policy.
I note, incidentally, an extraordinary proposition advanced by the hon. Gentleman. He alleges that regional offices are "currently undemocratic". I imagine that currently undemocratic implies, in his fevered imagination, that, at some point, they should become democratic. That is an extraordinary proposition, when one reflects on the fact that Government offices are a sensible arrangement whereby leading Departments of State combine their efforts in a region to ensure that optimum efficiencies are obtained from the scarce taxpayer resources that are devoted to that region. Government offices have been spectacularly successful throughout the country.
During the course of my duties, I have had the advantage of being able to visit all the regions, and I have noticed the extent to which all the regional offices—incidentally, the Government office for the east midlands is no exception—have become genuine champions of the regions they represent. That has been of huge value.
Conservative Members will wish to consider more carefully the cloud no bigger than a man's hand that is soon to cover the hon. Gentleman's sky of a democratic regional office. When we do, the proposition will be instantly withdrawn, like all the other propositions he advances.
The hon. Gentleman always uses the expression, "outgoing Government". It gives me great pleasure to assure him that the next Government will continue to promote the policies that Conservative Members believe are appropriate for dealing with urban congestion and pollution issues—largely because the Government will be composed of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I am clear that they at least have an urban congestion strategy that is coherent, manageable and politically practical, and that avoids all the dangers and pitfalls into which the Labour party has so timely fallen. Those pitfalls involve presenting itself as anti-car, anti-motorist and, frankly, anti-anything but the brown rice and open-toed sandal society with which the Labour party so often appears to associate itself.
Having said that, I shall return to the theme of the green commuter plan for Nottingham, in which there is a great deal that is admirable and worth supporting. As the hon. Gentleman knows when he talks about practical support beyond exhortation, the traditional means available to us are the transport supplementary grant and the allocation of resources under that heading, which takes place on the 198 basis of the transport policy plans presented to us each year. We in turn offer guidance to local authorities on how they may prepare those plans.
As the hon. Gentleman's learning curve is beginning to accelerate—some years behind, admittedly, but there is much joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, and I have great hopes for him—he will know that the way in which we allocate the resources is currently centred on the package approach to local transport planning. In all seriousness, he and I both recognise that that is how we must proceed if we want to develop a coherent local strategy.
As the hon. Gentleman correctly said, the key to the package approach is to take an environmentally sensitive attitude not only towards the role of the local authority and the other traditional components of the strategy, such as the bus operators and other transport undertakings, but towards that of businesses and individuals. We regard local authorities not only as transport authorities but as large employers and large presences in towns and cities. As such, they are members of the partnership that the hon. Gentleman correctly identifies as one that we need to engender locally.
I suggest that the practical way forward is to try to incorporate more of the idea of producing a holistic green commuter plan into our approach to our transport policy plan guidance in future, and, when we determine our expenditure priorities, to allocate whatever absolute level of resources there may be more in accordance with that basis.
When I spoke to all the local authorities in the regional consultative committees that meet every year—I have just completed this year's round—I told them that we tended to address two basic issues. The first is the absolute quantum of money. There, as ever, we are driven by the macro-economic requirements of the national economy. The second is what priority we give within the resources that we may have available.
In that connection, there is no doubt that the shift of emphasis towards the package approach over the past four years has been hugely helpful in achieving better value for the money we have.
§ Mr. NorrisI hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I continue, because, so consumed was I by his unique theory of the management of local regional government, that I have not yet started the speech that I intended to make.
§ Mr. NorrisAs it is the hon. Gentleman's debate, however, if he wishes to intervene he may by all means do so.
§ Mr. AllenThe Minister is typically generous, but he was also typically inaccurate in his opening remarks. I shall pass quickly over the first five minutes of his speech, and talk about Nottingham's green commuter plan.
As the Government may have one more round of TPPs and discussions with local authorities about their local transport spending, will the Minister consider issuing 199 some sort of guidance, or even making it clear in a public speech that he would like local authorities to consider the concept of green commuter plans, and will look with favour on their bids should those include something similar to the Nottingham example?
§ Mr. NorrisWe have just finalised the TPP guidance for the financial year 1997–98, which will soon be issued to local authorities so that they can get the flavour of what we shall look for in that settlement. As the hon. Gentleman said, that is likely to follow on before the expiry of this Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman will see that, in that guidance, we have continued to accent our interest in developing the package approach. Many of the themes he has mentioned are contained within the guidance—rightly so, because the bones that he has identified are the right ones. The recent Green Paper acknowledged that traffic growth, and its impact on congestion and environmental pollution, is fundamental to the way in which we shall develop our strategies in future.
There is growing concern about the effect on people's health, the environment and the economy of the uncontrolled use of the car. People are more likely to take responsible transport decisions if they are well informed and know more about the full implications of those decisions. Recognising that, several local authorities are operating schemes to raise public awareness of the impact of travel, both on congestion and on the environment. The Travelwise scheme first developed by Hertfordshire is an excellent example of how to develop just such a policy, and there have also been examples from other counties.
The responses to the national debate showed that the effect on air quality is the environmental impact that causes most concern. The Green Paper sets out the Government's strategy for reducing pollution from transport, taking account of the national air quality strategy that will be published as part of the implementation of the Environment Act 1995.
The strategy will set the policy framework for tackling pollution from all sources, including transport. It will set standards for the pollutants of most concern, and a time frame for meeting those standards, and will set out the measures that will be needed. The Government will play their part at national level—for example, by continuing to press for tighter vehicle emissions limits and enforcement measures.
It is recognised that, as we earlier agreed, there will be a key role for local authorities, companies and individuals. We believe that commuter plans such as that developed by Nottingham should be welcomed, and could have an important contribution to make. What I like about Nottingham's green commuter plan is the fact that it is a citywide initiative involving the county, the city, Nottingham Green Partnership, Transport 2000 and several other local organisations that have already shown a willingness to be involved.
The scheme has two cardinal benefits—benefit for the organisations involved, and benefit for the environment. In discussing the matter with people such as Adrian Jones and Lynn Sloman of Transport 2000, who came to see me to discuss the Nottingham plan before its publication, one of the aspects that I have always found attractive is the 200 fact that the organisations and their employees are the ones who benefit from a healthier life style, and from the reduction in the stress associated with car commuting.
Businesses, as distinct from their employees, also benefit from the release of land for more productive use, and, depending on the level of subsidy paid to car users and in rental for car parking spaces, can make significant financial savings that can be reallocated to the promotion of more sustainable forms of transport. Last but not least, the green commuter plans demonstrate by practical example how a greener transport strategy can be implemented by a major employer, whether that be a local authority or a private sector firm.
As the hon. Member said, there are obvious gains for the environment, too. The eventual outcome of the plan in Nottingham will be less traffic in the city centre, and a reduction not only in congestion and in traffic emissions but, as a by-product, in accidents. The publicised support for public transport cannot but be welcomed, and if green commuter plans help to release road space, allowing for extensions to existing bus and cycle networks, that will be a bonus.
The model that Nottingham has produced is one that many other organisations can follow. It is immensely gratifying that organisations such as Boots, Nottingham university and the Queen's medical centre have also been encouraged to provide green commuter plans. The overall target of such plans is to cut car commuting journeys by 30 per cent. in the initial three-year period, and experience from elsewhere, such as that in the Netherlands, shows that that can be done.
The feat will not be easy, but if we can develop model plans from the Netherlands and the United States of America, and think in terms of the central role of a staff travel co-ordinator—in corporate terms, that is essential, to keep the profile of such schemes high in people's minds—it ought to be achievable. With all political sparring to one side, I genuinely believe that, if the plan works, it will be a major achievement for Nottingham, and I look forward to congratulating the city.
Not only are all the partners in Nottingham involved in the scheme, but one of the other important local partners, the Government office for the east midlands, is also prepared to involve itself in a green commuter plan. It has well-managed on-site parking that is restricted to essential users, and has adopted the principle of the pool car. It now has flexible working hours and showering and changing facilities. The Department is prepared to offer interest-free cycle loans as an incentive to take up cycling. All that is laudable.
The Department of Transport's headquarters at Great Minster house is also developing a green commuter plan, which time prevents me from expanding upon in detail. I heartily endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Nottingham, North on the importance of developing a similar plan for the House of Commons. I am not entirely sure whether it is appropriate for me to do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I commend the remarks of the hon. Gentleman to you. Perhaps the House authorities will look at the Hansard report of the debate, and consider how they can develop a plan that will allow this place to provide a blueprint for good practice among major employers.